联合利华的品牌策略分析

Evaluate the key issues in the change of Unilever’s Branding strategy? Introduction

Brand strategy is a significant approach for enterprises to differentiate themselves from competitors and achieve business success in the intense market environment at global level. Effective brand strategy has significant role in building unique brand image based on target customers and the strategic goals of enterprises. However, the change in brand image is often an essential for modern enterprises due to the change in both external environment such as customer demand and internal environment such as products and service. This leads to the need of an effective rebranding strategy to facilitate the change of brand image. The effect of an effective rebranding strategy on the change of brand image has been confirmed by the practice of Unilever’s rebranding strategy. Unilever as one of the most valuable global brands has achieved great success at global level in the past decades. However, the change in customer demand calls for the change in Unilever’s image. For instance, the increase awareness of local brand in ice cream industry leads to Unilever’s decision to change its image of ice cream image. The rebranding practice of Unilever is recognized as a success in changing brand image. Based on this, this report attempts to investigate how Unilever’s rebranding strategy changes its corporate image. The report firstly will introduce relevant theoretical models that are applicable when companies consider branding strategy and identify the main issues which should be considered in contemplating a change of branding strategy. The contribution of rebranding strategy to the change in corporate image would be examined by reviewing the impact of Unilever’s rebranding strategy on its image. The report confirms the positive impact of rebranding strategy on the change in corporate image. Theoretical models

Previous literature has classified the causes of rebranding into internal causes and external causes (Goi and Goi, 2011). Among all causes of rebranding, the change in business structure and the attempt to change brand personality in the perception of target customers are suggested as two most important internal causes of rebranding (Gambles and Schuster, 2003; Lomax and Mador, 2006). For external causes, changes in competitive position and

macro-economic situation are the main ones that make enterprises to implement rebranding strategy (Goi and Goi, 2011). In the case of Unilever, the above identified factors are the main causes that lead to the need of its rebranding strategy. In the recent two decades, customer demands and external environment change significantly and rapidly across the world. The existing corporate image that is created by Unilever’s prior brand strategy could not satisfy the need of customers and cope with the change in external environment. Within this context, the attempt to update its image in the mind of its customers drives the company to implement a rebranding strategy.

Saraniemi et al (2009) propose a process model of corporate re-branding to understand the main steps in rebranding strategy. The model suggests that the identification of driving forces and causes of rebranding is the first step in the process model. After that, the analyses of the current situation, competitive position, and main competitors should be implemented. Based on the identification and analyses, brand plan must be created to determine the vision and purpose of rebranding. Various decisions should be made this this phase. Moreover, it also shows that the process of rebranding, to some extents, is a continuous process. The actual outcome of a rebranding strategy should be evaluated and continuous effort should be made in order to achieve better outcome of rebranding.

Fig 1: Process model of rebranding suggested by Saraniemi et al (2009)